Dark Fibre Access

Dark Fibre Access Update 15/08/2017

Please note that Openreach made a formal announcement concerning the Dark Fibre Access product (DFA) on 15th August 2017 at the EPCG and in a General Industry Briefing. The announcement gave notice to industry that we do not intend to launch DFA on 1 October 2017 or notify the associated DFA launch terms and conditions including pricing at the end of August/early September 2017.

To note the information below is superseded by the statement and the associated briefing outlined above.

Dark Fibre Access (DFA) is a new infrastructure product from the Openreach Ethernet portfolio which will be available from 1 October 2017. DFA allows customers to design and build connectivity services and solutions. The product design is very much based on a common fibre delivery process on the Openreach strategic EMP platform to ensure a consistent order journey for customers.

Geographic coverage

The Dark Fibre Access product will be available to all interested CPs from product launch on 1 October 2017. It’ll be available on a national basis in both the;

regulated geographic areas on the terms specified by Ofcom in BCMR 2016 Statement

non-regulated geographic areas and routes, specifically Central London Area (CLA) and Competitive Core (CC). Although we aren’t mandated to provide DFA in these areas, we’ve decided to make it available.

Details of our offer for the CLA and the CC will be notified to industry 28 days before product launch.

Services

Openreach Dark Fibre Access service offers an uncontended, unmonitored, unlit optical path over an end to end radial distance of up to 45km and a maximum route distance of 86km between two sites. This will be a passive service and no equipment will be provided to light the fibre provide, hence the reference to ‘dark fibre’ in the product title.

Product options

The service will be available with two variants, Standard and Local Access options, with both being able to be ordered as either a single fibre or fibre pair option, so depending on the overall active solution that customers are planning to operate they can choose the product variant that best suits their needs.

Timeline

Publication of Draft Reference Offer and supporting documentation on 1 September 2016